Uphill idealist

Photo from The Nashville Scene Busy Saturdays make me long for time to: Read a book, Go on a walk, talk to a friend and not look at the clock. To see: how much is left, of this day off, that feels more full than a work day. Slow Monday is just around the corner, if I let it stay unstructured, unscheduled, and un-tampered with. Help me keep it slow, that quiet Monday that I cherish so.

Sits in the corner of my office. Melon green, sky blue, beigey beige and wicker weave. The half-circle sits waiting - for conversation over coffee, tea, cookies and tissue boxes. for book reading in the afternoon sun. for people to fill their openness, with themselves. As they are, however they come and in every color of the rainbow. Just like my new-old multicolored furniture.

Stained glass @ Casa online . When I was a little girl some of the things I remember most about Sunday mornings in church were: the rich colors of the stained glass groovy (or so I thought) windows, drawing pictures all over every centimeter of the visitor cards with the tiny pencils that were in the pew, and sitting next to my Dad and holding his hand. I remember looking forward to prayer, because it was when I usually grabbed my Dad's hand tight. It was a moment I felt safe, loved and understood. Dad's hands were work weary. He was a police officer and also moonlighted as a home contractor. Sometimes his hands would have wood stain on them, they were rough and often he would have some cuts here and there from working with wood or a purple thumbnail from missing a nail and hitting it with a hammer. Somehow, I was never put off by the life wear that was so visible in his hands. I can still picture Dad in his three piece gray or brown suit looking so put together, but his hands ...

Photo from Kendall Payne's website I saw Kendall Payne perform at the NYWC in Pittsburgh last fall - lovely and clever music indeed!

Hope flickers catching the least bit of light and makes everything sparkle with possibility. Hope shimmers in corners of books pages being turned in cozy coffee shops and travel in the gurgling sounds of latte's in progress. Hope shows up in the unexpected wagging of a dog's tail, that thought it had forgotten how to play. Hope lives in the phone call so needed by the friend you miss. Words of knowing and understanding make it grow. Hope is what makes an unselfish idea become a dream and eventually, patiently, and deliberately come true. Then inspiration becomes a dream or idea for another mind to ponder. Hope is never-ending, shy to be seen, but ready to be duplicated. Humble, real and always waiting for you, just when you think you've reached the end of your rope. There is hope.

I just do.Thanks for loving me. "Every day there is something more to hold on to." Butterfly Boucher

My husband, Ian and I were talking last night about "Sleeping with Bread" and the context of holding on to a resource of comfort in the midst of darkness. We talked about how we've grown as people and some of our adventures together since we met in 1988 (really!). Sometimes I look back on all those years in wonder of all the life that we've lived, through both the complex and simple times. The nostalgic mood we were in had something to do with the annual combined birthday lunch celebration of my Mother-in-law and I. We also watched some home movies at Janet's house on Sunday afternoon (that is what the blogged poem below is about.), and I was amazed at the effect the thirty-year-old home movies had upon my husband's family members. Seeing the images of family members of the past allowed us to wonder, beginning to grasp the fact that we would not have been sitting here 30 years later on a Sunday afternoon, had it not been for them. How strange it is to conside...

Photo from Digital Retouch Old movies flicker with faces from the past. Without these images who would known that their names would last. Tear filled eyes overwhelmed with the vision of fuzzy faced memories now in focus of their living. The lives that they lived and the people they met, seem to have faded away like yellowed newspapers. Yet, here they are remembered in a technicolor DVD dream. Antiques of humanity, driving beautiful old cars look so enchanting in their everyday wars. Playing with children and cutting homemade wedding cakes. Looking at these flashes of their lives makes me wonder what impact ours will make.